Valuing Dogs More than War Victims: Bridging the Empathy GapAn Animal Rights Article from All-Creatures.org

FROM

I wonder what would happen if Aleppo were full of golden retrievers, if
we could see barrel bombs maiming helpless, innocent puppies. Would we still
harden our hearts and ‘otherize’ the victims? Would we still say ‘it’s an
Arab problem; let the Arabs solve it’?

I was very surprised and even more pleased to see what Mr. Kristof wrote.
I wanted to share his thoughts and the above questions with a wide
readership because I believe we can learn a lot about how we view and treat
humans with whom we don't feel very close in comparison with how we view and
treat nonhumans with whom we form close, enduring, and reciprocal
relationships. Why do we hold these inconsistencies and why do they persist?

Would you do it to your dog? Using dogs to bridge the empathy gap

Often, when I’m discussing some aspect of nonhuman animal (animal) abuse I
ask people, “Would you do it to your dog?” Across the board people are
incredulous when I ask this question, and I simply explain to them that dogs
aren’t more sentient than food animals such as cows, pigs, or chickens,
laboratory animals such as mice and rats, or entertainment animals such as
elephants or orcas.

I bring up these discussions to discuss the idea of using dogs to bridge the
“empathy gap.” Using dogs in this way asks people to recognize that we often
are extremely inconsistent in how we view and treat other nonhuman animals
in comparison to how we view and treat our canine, feline, and numerous
other household companions. We also view and treat our companions with much
more compassion and empathy than we do some groups of humans. In a previous
essay called "Labeling Non-Native Animals: The Psychology of Name Calling" I
focused on the way in which humans form beliefs and base their behavior
toward other humans and nonhumans based on whether individuals are viewed as
members of "in-groups" or "out-groups."

Would you kill a dog for fun?

"Would you kill a dog for fun?" is another question I often ask. For
example, many people engage in recreational and trophy hunting "for the fun
of it," but they too often seem incredulous when I ask this question. Most
answer by saying something like, "Of course not." In a letter to the editor
for the New York Times I raised this question once again concerning the
brutal massacre of tens of thousands of coyotes (and millions of other
animals) by a government group called Wildlife Services that pretty much
does whatever it wants in the arena of animal murder. I wrote:

Dan Flores’s excellent essay [Stop Killing Coyotes] raises numerous issues
about the violent war on coyotes that’s been going on, incredibly
unsuccessfully, for decades. Wildlife Services kills them by the tens of
thousands annually, and others join sanctioned killing contests just for the
fun of it.

Coyotes, like the dogs millions share their homes and hearts with, are
intelligent and highly emotional beings. Having studied coyotes for more
than four decades, I know them well, and it’s very clear that they’ve been
more than able to adapt to an increasingly human-dominated world.

I often ask people, “Would you kill a dog for fun?” Coyotes are no less
sentient than our companion dogs and don’t like being trapped, snared, shot
from airplanes or poisoned. Dogs can bridge the empathy gap between animals
we know well and those who are unjustifiably vilified.

For more on Mr. Flores' book Coyote America please see "Coyote America: The
Evolution of Human-Animal Relationships."

"Do You Care More About a Dog Than a Refugee?"

"If only, I thought, we valued kids in Aleppo as much as we did our
terriers!"

Along the lines of what I wrote above, on August 18, 2016 New York Times
writer Nicholas Kristof published an essay called “Do You Care More About a
Dog Than a Refugee?” (The original essay was titled "But What if My Dog Had
Been a Syrian?" Mr. Kristof beings:

Last Thursday, our beloved family dog, Katie, died at the age of 12. She
was a gentle giant who respectfully deferred even to any mite-size puppy
with a prior claim to a bone. Katie might have won the Nobel Peace Prize if
not for her weakness for squirrels. I mourned Katie’s passing on social
media and received a torrent of touching condolences, easing my ache at the
loss of a member of the family. Yet on the same day that Katie died, I
published a column calling for greater international efforts to end Syria’s
suffering and civil war, which has claimed perhaps 470,000 lives so far.
That column led to a different torrent of comments, many laced with a harsh
indifference: Why should we help them? These mingled on my Twitter feed:
heartfelt sympathy for an American dog who expired of old age, and what felt
to me like callousness toward millions of Syrian children facing starvation
or bombing. If only, I thought, we valued kids in Aleppo as much as we did
our terriers!

Mr. Kristof ends:

I wonder what would happen if Aleppo were full of golden retrievers, if we
could see barrel bombs maiming helpless, innocent puppies. Would we still
harden our hearts and ‘otherize’ the victims? Would we still say ‘it’s an
Arab problem; let the Arabs solve it’? Yes, solutions in Syria are hard and
uncertain. But I think even Katie in her gentle wisdom would have agreed
that not only do all human lives have value, but also that a human’s life is
worth every bit as much as a golden retriever’s.”

Comparing how dogs and "otherized" humans are viewed and treated

Clearly, Mr. Kristof was using the passing of his dog to attempt to bridge
the empathy gap between how he and others viewed Katie's passing and how
humans who are considered members of out-groups -- who are "otherized" --
are viewed and treated.

I was very surprised and even more pleased to see what Mr. Kristof wrote.
I wanted to share his thoughts and the above questions with a wide
readership because I believe we can learn a lot about how we view and treat
humans with whom we don't feel very close in comparison with how we view and
treat nonhumans with whom we form close, enduring, and reciprocal
relationships. Why do we hold these inconsistencies and why do they persist?

Dogs can indeed bridge the empathy gap if we're open to this possibility. At
the very least it's essential to ask difficult questions and come to an
understanding of why we hold the attitudes we do and how we can use our
feelings about companion animals and extend compassion and empathy to other
nonhumans and humans who truly need all the help and they can get.

Note: In response to this essay, attorney Steven Wise [The
Nonhuman Rights Project] wrote to me: Kristof was making a false
analogy. We value our dogs more than the children of others far away. We
also value our children more than dogs far away. The variable is not
species, but proximity and relationship.

Marc Bekoff's latest books are Jasper's Story: Saving Moon Bears (with
Jill Robinson), Ignoring Nature No More: The Case for Compassionate
Conservation, Why Dogs Hump and Bees Get Depressed: The Fascinating Science
of Animal Intelligence, Emotions, Friendship, and Conservation, Rewilding
Our Hearts: Building Pathways of Compassion and Coexistence, and The Jane
Effect: Celebrating Jane Goodall (edited with Dale Peterson). The Animals'
Agenda: Freedom, Compassion, and Coexistence in the Human Age (with Jessica
Pierce) will be published in early 2017.

Fair Use Notice: This document, and others on our web site, may contain copyrighted
material whose use has not been specifically authorized by the copyright owners.
We believe that this not-for-profit, educational use on the Web constitutes a fair use
of the copyrighted material (as provided for in section 107 of the US Copyright Law).
If you wish to use this copyrighted material for purposes of your own that go beyond fair use,
you must obtain permission from the copyright owner.